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James Bond (Timothy Dalton)
Commander James Bond is a Senior Operational Officer of the 'Double-O' ('00') Branch, an ultra-covert Black Ops unit within the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). As an agent of MI6, Bond holds code number "007". The 'double-O' prefix indicates his discretionary licence to kill in the performance of his duties. Welsh actor Timothy Dalton took over the role from Roger Moore in 1987. He appeared in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989). Legal squabbles between the Bond producers and the studio over distribution rights resulted in the cancellation of a proposed third Dalton film in 1991 and put the series on a hiatus for several years. Film biography Shared background Although very little of Bond's past is directly addressed in Timothy Dalton's films, it is assumed that his Bond continues to share the common background laid out by the Ian Fleming novels and preceding Bond films. In the novels, James' parents (Andrew Bond of Scotland and Monique Delacroix-Bond of Switzerland) were tragically killed during a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was eleven. He had acquired a first-class command of the French and German languages during his early education, which he received entirely abroad. After the death of his parents, Bond goes to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond, where he completes his early education. Later, he briefly attends Eton College at "12 or thereabouts", but is removed after two halves because of girl trouble with a maid. After being sent down from Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father's school. After leaving Fettes, earlier EON films note that Bond studied at Cambridge University. There, he achieved a first in Oriental languages. In Fleming's novels, Bond alluded to briefly attending the University of Geneva (as did Fleming), before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel. Following his graduation, Bond joined the Ministry of Defence and became a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves, rising though the ranks to commander. Bond applied to M for a position within the "Secret Service", part of the Civil Service, and rose to the rank of principal officer. The Living Daylights (1987) Licence to Kill (1989) Behind the scenes Dalton took the Bond character away from the light-hearted playboy of Roger Moore, harking back to the gritty realism of Fleming's novels instead of fantasy plots and humour. Dalton stated in a 1989 interview: "I think Roger was fine as Bond, but the films had become too much techno-pop and had lost track of their sense of story. I mean, every film seemed to have a villain who had to rule or destroy the world. If you want to believe in the fantasy on screen, then you have to believe in the characters and use them as a stepping-stone to lead you into this fantasy world. That's a demand I made, and Albert Broccoli agreed with me." Dalton approached the role closer to the original character described by Ian Fleming and was often seen reading the books on set. His 007 was a more reluctant and questioning hero who did not always enjoy the assignments he was given, something only seen on screen before, albeit obliquely, in George Lazenby's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In The Living Daylights, for example, Bond tells a critical colleague, "Stuff my orders! ... Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it." In Licence to Kill, he resigns from the Secret Service in order to pursue his own agenda of revenge. Steven Jay Rubin writes in The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopaedia(1995): "Unlike Moore, who always seems to be in command, Dalton's Bond sometimes looks like a candidate for the psychiatrist's couch – a burned-out killer who may have just enough energy left for one final mission. That was Fleming's Bond – a man who drank to diminish the poison in his system, the poison of a violent world with impossible demands.... His is the suffering Bond." References Category:James Bond characters Category:James Bonds